What is a Backlink? – SEO FAQs Simply Answered

In short – backlink is just like a handshake between one website and another; or a vote that your website is any good.

The more votes (or backlinks) you have the popular your website is on the World Wide Web (internet).

If you want a bit more technical explanation of “what is a backlink”.

Let’s dig in!

What is a backlink?

Backlinks are links to your website from other websites.

A backlink is a term often used in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). When one website references or adds a URL to another site – it’s how backlinks are born.

In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology a backlink is a hyperlink that links from a Web page, back to your own Web page or Web site.

Also called an Inbound Link (IBL) these links are important in determining the popularity (or importance) of your Web site. Some search engines, including Google, will consider Web sites with more backlinks more relevant in search results pages.

Some search engines, including Google, will consider Web sites with more backlinks more relevant in search results pages.

The structure of a backlink

Anchor Tag <a>: Starting of the link is represented by the anchor tag. The anchor tag is to say the search engine; hyperlink is about to follow.

Link Reference: Hyperlink Referral (href) indicates the address to which anchor text is pointing out. The address should be inside the quotation. The address doesn’t need to be the web page always it can also be the link to image or a file. Sometimes address can also be “#” which means these are local links which take you to the same page or different section of the same page.

Anchor Text: Anchor Text is a text and only portion of the anchor tag which is seen to the user on the web page. When the user links to the anchor text(Text in which link is given), the link will open. These anchor text is usually formatted to indicate the user, it is clickable. The general indication of anchor text is, text in blue color text or underlined for the user convenience and to differentiate from other text.

Closing Tag </a>: This signals the search engine regarding the end of the link. This is just closure of the hyperlink tag.

How to create a backlink?

In WordPress, you can simply color the text and paste the link – done. Backlink was made.

It’s really simple.

In other blogging platforms, it’s almost as quick as that.

1st Step – Color the text:

2nd Step – Allocate and click on the icon that looks something like this:

3rd Step – Insert the URL you want to add to the text.

DONE! – You just created a backlink.

Different types of Backlinks

All backlinks are not created equally.

There are different types of links and the impact that a backlink leave on a site:

Do-Follow Backlinks

No-Follow Backlinks

Dofollow backlinks

Dofollow backlinks indicate not only link one page to another but transfer site’s quality metrics. Which means the more dofollow backlinks you can get, the more qualitative your domain will be.

Dofollow backlink example:

This is how dofollow backlink looks like in the code (HTML editor): Dofollow backlinks are the links that are inserted into blog posts, news releases, and very few times also as a comment or a forum post.

Nofollow backlinks

Nofollow backlinks connect one website to another but transfer no authority.

These backlinks can be seen in blog’s comment sections and forums.

Nofollow backlink example:

The only difference in code is that nofollow backlinks have rel=”nofollow” or rel=”external nofollow”.

That might seem like a small difference but for Google, that means a lot. When search engines are crawling the web – they notice this “rel” and knows that backlink is just a link from one page to other and doesn’t transfer any authority metrics from one domain to another.

Why do you need to create backlinks?

There is a large number of website owners that check and monitor their backlinks. So, when you link to other sites – they notice you.

Being noticed in the online environment is hard but very important.

Linking to other sites is a long-term strategy, especially, if you are just starting out. But eventually, it will start paying off once your website builds authority.

Thus, start now.

Why your site needs backlinks?

As stated above – backlinks are like votes – thus the more votes your site has, the popular it gets.

Build the popularity online and you will start getting organic traffic, building the community and site’s authority.

Backlinks are the key.

Why do you to link to pages within your domain?

At the beginning when you are starting out there will be very few sites that would link to your page. So linking to your own pages internally is a good way to get internal backlinks.

So linking to your own pages internally is a good way to get internal backlinks.

That’s one way to rank on Google.

I hope now you know what is a backlink!

So to sum up – backlink is a link that connects one page to another.

The more backlinks (dofollow) you have the popular your page is.

I hope this helps and if you have any other unclear questions about SEO, feel free to visit our SEO FAQ section.